Productivity
This past weekend seemed to be pretty productive for us, even if most of it was just cleaning or planning out ideas for down the line. I guess most see winter as a time to work indoors, and while normally I’d agree with you, I find it to be more difficult. The main reason is that I would normally begin working on a project during the week, trying to get everything prepped so that when the weekend rolled around, I had everything ready and could really knock out what we had planned. In the winter, however, it becomes more difficult because by the time I get home from work, the sun has already gone down and for whatever reason, I feel the need to plop down and relax. That could be because one of the main things I want to focus on lately involves electrical work, and the last time I tried to do this when the sun was going down, it was very difficult. So I do apologize to the avid readers looking for new content, that we’ve been a bit slacking on that. Hopefully that changes soon.
With that said, we did get some work done this weekend, which also happens to correspond with me losing my camera (I found it last night). The big thing we got done was to get rid of a television that was just sitting in our spare room. It was an older tv, that probably weighed around 100 pounds, and I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Luckily for us, some friends had told us about a monthly recycling program offered to county residents, and it was free. We joined forces and recycled their television as well, which for some reason weighed about 150 pounds more than ours. We hauled both tvs in the element to the recycling center, where we profusely apologized to the gentlemen hauling out the tvs. Strong men, we felt bad, but they had fun with it, seriously. That frees up an enormous amount of space in the spare room, and hopefully I can empty out some of the other things just lying around. It has slowly become a force of its own in there, quite scary.
Also in finishing up our productivity were our taxes. I love doing taxes, I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I never owe and so it’s nice to think of receiving free money (when in reality, it’s far from free). Anyway, I like getting our taxes done early, as to not wait until the mad rush of people trying to get them done at the last-minute. Hopefully that also opens the door to get some new work done on the house. I’ve got plans people, I swear I have plans.
We also made it back to my hometown this weekend to pick up some tools for the folks, as well as make plans down the road. What I really want to do is pick my dad’s brain and have him help me build some night stands for our bedroom. He has a table saw, which I’ve never used, as well as a whole lot of knowledge stored in that noggin of his, so I’m really REALLY looking forward to that. I hope to do an entire week of blogs to that once we get started. Should be fun.
So, I’m sorry we haven’t updated in quite a while, but there is a lot of work coming, that I promise. If only building stuff and blogging was our full-time job, you’d have so much more to read. Stay tuned, more is coming…soon.
Read MoreA quick look
I realized that after I finished the coffee table, that photo I took was it sitting on a drop cloth. Not really that exciting…because you know, coffee tables are extremely exciting. Anyway, here is a just a quick update to the room as it is right now. Still no dining room chairs, but hopefully that will be in the somewhat near future (probably not).
We’re very happy with how it all looks. Next up, decor. We really need to get something on those walls, just not sure what it will all be. We’ll be doing some more work on other rooms very soon, we’re just getting it all in order, so have no fear loyal readers, there will be new updates soon enough.
Read MoreResolutions and ideas for 2012
I’m a few days late, but that’s okay (being prompt wasn’t a resolution). It’s that time of year where everyone makes bold resolutions and comes up with ideas and accomplishments for the following year. Since it’s starting to get a bit colder outside, I won’t be doing any woodworking over the next few months, at least, not until spring. So I’ll need something to blog about, right? Well, here are a few (of the many) things on my list for 2012.
1 . Paint – We still have at least three rooms upstairs (both guest rooms and a bathroom) that need a new coat of paint. Our main guest room will be pretty easy once we decide on a color. The other, smaller bedroom will take a bit more effort because of the “awesome” blue trim that goes all along the base of the room.
2. Another bathroom remodel (maybe) – As mentioned above, we have a bathroom that needs a coat of paint. Okay, it needs a lot more than that, but as I learned while renovating a half bath, I hate doing bathrooms. That being said, we need to do something with this bathroom, because it is a true eye sore.
3. Replace the kitchen ceiling fan – I’ve blogged about this briefly, but it has to go. Now that we’ve done so much work on the first floor of the house, this (along with the ugly “boob” lights) are all that remain. So, it’s time to bite the bullet and get rid of this thing. 
4. Build more stuff – Once spring time hits, I’ll hopefully be outside building more furniture. On the list of things to build are side tables for the living room, nightstands for our bedroom and potentially a farmhouse bedframe for the guest room. Yeah, we want our guest to be sleeping in style.
*image courtesy of Ana-white.com
5. Landscaping – This is a tough one, because neither of us have a green thumb. The yard, as small as it is, isn’t too bad, but there are a few areas that could use a little love. Mainly, we have a tree in our backyard that is sectioned off with small old tree stumps. Those tree stumps now have grown a mushroom like mold and they don’t look that great. It’s time to ditch those and come up with a long term plan that is functional and looks nice. Oh, and mulch…boy do we need mulch.
6. Blog maintenance - This one is a doozy because it’s all background work that you’ll probably not even notice, that is, unless you are like my mom who can’t see any of the photos I post because flickr is blocked at her work. Lame. So, in order to remedy that, I will hopefully migrate all the photos onto this site directly, and then everyone should be able to see them super easy, and it should also help with page load times. Again, it’s a little thing, but hopefully effective.
7. Learn something new – Anything really. I am someone who needs to constantly be learning, it’s just in my nature. I learned how to create webpages, blog, build stuff, fix stuff, yell at stuff…and so on all by just doing it. I hope to keep that moving forward over the course of 2012, and by year’s end, have something completely new under my belt, and ready to try something different in 2013.
8. Decorate more – Lastly (for now), one thing we really need to do in our house is make it more personal. We both know this. We don’t have much on our walls around the house. Part of that is because we haven’t had a lot of furniture until recently, so it’s hard to come up with a plan when you’ve got nothing. This year we really want to get more photos up, some art, and other things put up around the house. It’s the little things that make the biggest difference, don’t you think?
So there you have it faithful readers, a list of 8 things I’d like to accomplish for 2012. I left a lot off the list (and yes, I actually wrote out a list), but these are the main areas I’d like to focus on for now. Notice “go to the gym, eat better, be proactive” aren’t all on the list, because that’s a given, and usually by my birthday I’ve given up on most of that. I will, however, eat more cookies, that I do promise.
Read MoreIf at first you don’t succeed…
…Sand it down and start again. As you may recall, I recently finished the coffee table I was building for our living room. With our new furniture, I thought it would be the perfect idea and tip of the cap for the room. Here’s what is was supposed to look like.
I wanted to match it to the dining room table as closely as I could, so that the room would really flow together. Well, upon further review, and nearly breaking my back carrying this table up and down the stairs and all around the house, I noticed that I didn’t quite get the same look.
On the right is the dining room table, and to the left is the coffee table. Even though I used the exact same stains, it didn’t quite come out right. Ironically, the darker/redder look was what I was going for originally with the dining room table, but there was no way I was going to sand that down and start over since I had poly’d it and all. So my options were simple, live with the mismatched tables, or sand down the coffee table and restain. I chose to sand it down. After carrying it to the back yard…again, I busted out my electric sander and went to town. Now, I know when I stained it, I didn’t wipe off as much stain (which is why it was darker), but when sanding, it just kills sandpaper so fast. I went through about 20 sheets of 60 grit sandpaper just to try to get it back to the bare wood.
As you can see with this small section, I couldn’t get it all the way down, most of the dark stain still was in the wood, and I caused a few new marks as I was sanding (because I was really digging in). After the entire table was sanded down, I took to the stain again. This time I started (like before) with a coat of Minwax’s “English Chestnut,” and when I was done, it started to look a bit too dark again. Plus, some of the red from the original “gunstock” color was still there, so to lighten it up, I applied “Golden Pecan” as a second coat, which is the same color as our floor.
As I applied the second coat, I was able to wipe away a lot of the really dark areas, which helped. Now, I had to wait and carry the table back inside (again) to see how it matched. Wouldn’t you know, it was pretty close (as close as I was going to get). So I heaved the beast to the back yard one last time to Poly it up. Three coats (and even though it wasn’t in the forecast, it started to rain right after the second coat). After the third coat was done and had dried, I pulled the table in for the final look. You tell me, I’d say it is pretty perfect.
The extra sanding really brought out the grain in the wood, which I really do love. So even though it was a huge pain in the butt, and it took much longer than I expected, I am extremely pleased with the overall look. And in case you are wondering why it’s on a dropcloth, I just wanted to be 100% sure it was dry before I moved it onto the carpet. I would hate to ruin our new carpet because I wanted to see how it all looked.
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About Matt and MC
We just recently bought our first home, and we decided to share our story of our adventures with you. The ups and downs of home ownership, and all the fun we'll have in between. Ignore the typos and just have fun, that's what we're here for. 
